What Anna Soubry said about Theresa May on Newsnight

I used to be a BBC TV Newsnightoholic, but hardly ever watch it these days - except when there's something interesting happening in the news - like the defection of some rather sensible MPs from both the Labour and Conservative parties.

One of three MPs to quit the Conservative Party says she's "really worried" the prime minister has a "problem with immigration".

Anna Soubry, who now sits with the Independent Group, told Newsnight's Kirsty Wark: "The only reason why she will not agree to [continued membership of] the single market is because of free movement of people."

Gang of 4 grows in in interesting way

7 becomes 11 - including 3 Tories

Overnight we heard that another Labour MP, Joan Ryan had had enough of Corbyn's leadership of  her party and his feeble response to anti-Semitism - and that she's has the group of 7 independents who quit the party on Monday.

Heidi Allen,  Sarah Wollaston,  Anna Soubry

As a side-show, we also had to watch Derek Hatton, former 'Militant' (i.e. Labour PartyTrotskyist infiltrator who was expelled from Kinnock's party 30 years ago) being welcomed back into today's new model Labour party.

Today's Tory Gang of Three

The decision of three extremely articulate and effective women MPs to leave the Conservative Party is rather more interesting than the departures from Labour - because the SDP gang of four's escape from the Labour Party's left-wing extremism was not accompanied by any Tory defections.

And though the gender balance of the new Independent grouping is looking quite impressive, viewed through the eyes of an OAP, it could do with someone closer to a certain age. So who better than Soubry's neighbouring Nottinghamshire MP, than the ultra pro-European Ken Clarke???

But I suppose the big question now is whether any of the younger anti-Corbyn MPs will risk their own chances of succeeding him by resigning from the party? Andy Burnham had presumably already given up on the Corbyn-McDonnell Labour party when he resigned as Shadow Home Secretary in 2016 with intent to go back home to the North as Mayor of Greater Manchester.

As I've said before, a leadership contest between David Lammy and Yvette Cooper could restore a confidence in an erstwhile credible party. Under the current regime, however, the chances of that ever happening are - er - NIL!!!

Gangs of 4 and 7: history repeating itself???

Gang of Four, 1981

Bill Rodgers, David Owen,
Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams

The original 'gang of four', Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Kenyan and Wang Hongwenan were prominent in orchestrating Chairman Mao's cultural revolution, 1966-76. So when four leading figures in the Labour Party set up the SDP in 1981, it was hardly surprising that the media dubbed them the 'gang of four'.

The reason they did so was that the January 1981 Wembley conference had committed the Labour Party to unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the European Economic Community.

They also believed that Labour had become too left-wing and had been infiltrated at constituency party level by Trotskyist factions whose views and behaviour they considered to be at odds with the Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour voters.

If Militant and the far left made Labour unelectable for 17 years, Momentum looks like doing much the same to today's Corbyn-McDonnell left-wing Labour Party.